July 2015 Business News Roundup

With earnings season in full swing on Wall Street there were a few notable bits of Las Vegas business news this week.

Nevada regulators approved the merger of Lakes Entertainment and Golden Gaming. The combined company will be called Golden Entertainment and will be publicly traded. Golden currently operates in Nevada owning a few casinos in Pahrump along with taverns and slot machines located in grocery stores and other businesses. Lakes owns the Rocky Gap resort in Maryland.

Boyd Gaming reported second quarter 2015 earnings. Their Las Vegas properties had solid results. Las Vegas Locals revenue was up 3.21% from the second quarter last year, and Downtown was up 5.19%. Boyd stock was flat today on the news.

Las Vegas based Pinnacle Entertainment agreed to sell its real estate to Gaming and Leisure Properties (GLPI). Under this arraingement Pinnacle will continue to operate their resort properties while paying rent to GLPI. Penn National has a similar arrangement, as GLPI was split out from that company a few years ago.

In case you missed them earlier this week also check out my blog posts about Las Vegas Sands earnings and Penn National's plans for Tropicana.